With this Ring
by terriblemuriel
Summary: It's Brittany's birthday and Santana has a special present for her.


**A/N This piece is dedicated to the lovely and talented jeune fille en fleur: Beta, Mentor, Friend. It's an homage to her fic, _The Only True Paradises_ which, shame on you if you are not reading. **

You wake. The broken sunlight is streaming in through dusty blinds. Motes of glittering dust-air swirl as they float between the striated bands of light. There is fine, blonde hair in your mouth and you turn your head to stare at her; that beautiful face that has graced your pillow for years now never ceases to amaze you. Her freckles have accumulated over the years and there might be just the faintest hint of a laugh line in the delicate skin around her eyes, but you know when she opens those eyes they will have the same sparkle they've had since you met her in grade school. Those eyes seduced you then (before you even knew what seduction was or how the slow bat of her eyelashes could make your come undone) and they still have power over you now.

You inhale her scent. Its close and thick. Your nose against her temple sucks in her citrusy shampoo, the now faded minty mouthwash, the animal scent of sweat and musk. You bury your nose behind her ear and draw her in. It is more than air; it is more than aroma. It is just... her. She's intoxicating. You're almost lightheaded as you take in another greedy whiff. You'd bottle this and sell it for thousands of dollars an ounce if you ever wanted to share her, but you dont. Instead, you wear her clothes, sleep naked in her arms, roll in her sheets like an old dog; you make sure that each day you leave her side, you have a reminder of her on your fingers, inside your wrist, against your chest.

Today's the day. It's her twenty-fifth birthday. You've been joking about being _a quarter of a century_ old for months. Six months, to be precise, since you had your birthday last November. She teased you, called you _spinster_ and _elderly_ until you growled into her neck and threw her to the couch/bed/ground (you're still not so old as to be fussy about _where_) to prove what an _old lady_ can still do. You know she knows how to push your buttons and her teasing always garners her exactly what she wants. Afterwards, she purrs in your arms about _buying matching rocking chairs_ and _taking up knitting_, but you stifle her laughter with your mouth.

You want today to be special. You've both taken a rare day off to celebrate. Medical school is hard and does not afford you much (any) time off, but for her you'll miss a dissection lab. Her career is skyrocketing, just like you knew it would, and she's in demand. So much so, that despite the late hours you spend studying, you still go to bed alone. You pass her as she stumbles in at dawn mumbling about a shoot running late just as you're getting up to run to your classes. It's not the life you imagined, but you wouldn't trade it for anything. You wouldn't trade her anything.

It hasn't been easy. It took you both a while to _match your insides to your outsides_ as Britt says, but you made it happen and each time you told someone about the two of you it got easier to tell the next person. Now, everyone knows: your parents, your friends, your classmates, Britt's dance colleagues. Strangers on the street see the way you clasp hands, swinging them between your too-close bodies, see the way your eye sneaks up to meet hers in conversation, see the only slightly innocent kisses you give each other when saying hello or good-bye in public. She is it for you and you can't imagine that you ever allowed her to think for one moment that wasn't the case. You'll probably never get over the disservice your stupid seventeen-year-old self did to the both of you. But you've made it this far. To twenty-five years old. And you're ready to move on, with her by your side and with no regrets.

She's stirring. You press your lips to her temple, then to her cheek, then to each fluttering eyelid, before settling your lips against hers is a tender wake-up kiss.

_Good morning, Birthday Girl,_ you whisper as you lean onto your side to stare into those hypnotic blue eyes. Even half-lidded and crusty (she's wiping them and trying to focus on your too-close face) those eyes hold sway over you. You grin and kiss her again. She's murmuring and kissing you back and, morning breath aside, things are looking like they might be going a different direction than you intended. Despite the addiction you have to waking up next to her when she's soft and wanting like this, you have other plans.

_Babe, I want to give you your present first, okay?_

At the word _present_, Brittany is six years old again. She sits up and claps her hands. She's laughing and her eyes crinkle with joy and _oh god_, you do want to kiss and lay her back down and maybe you're a little bit nervous and sex always helps you with that, but no. You need to stick to your guns. You need to give her your present.

The black velvet box is in your nightstand drawer. You put it there last night while she was in her post-work, pre-Birthday eve bath (for which you provided about 50 candles because Brittany is really entranced by flickering light). Before that it was in the back of your closet, your backpack, several coat pockets, the empty Christmas ornaments box, Quinn's apartment, and the freezer. No place was ever secure enough and you're positive you've worn the edges shiny with your constant opening and closing and _just checking_.

_B, remember those earrings my dad gave me for my 16th birthday; the ones that I wore all through high school?_

_You mean the diamond ones that you stopped wearing in college because you said they were bougie? Yea, what about them?_

You hand her the box. She's understandably shocked.

Those diamonds were big when they were earrings. At the time you didnt believe it when your dad said they were as good a gift as the car you'd asked for because all you wanted was the freedom to escape the house whenever you felt it. Earrings felt like a consolation prize; a shiny, but undrivable consolation prize that you wore only to show off while you sulked and caught rides. But as you slip the ring onto her finger, that diamond's a shimmering rock of epic proportions and you're thanking your father with every cell in your body that you are able to make Brittany look at you like _that_.

You have a speech prepared. It's about how you've been planning this day since you were six years old. And how it's funny that the details have changed, but the intent is still the same. It's about how your six-year-old's fantasy did not involve you being the giver of the ring or popping the question, but how you wouldn't want your life to have gone any other way.

There's more. You want to talk about how you're not exactly rich but you never want her to want for anything and you promise to provide for her always even though school's expensive and her work is sporadic. As long as you're together and the rent's paid, there's gas in the car and food in the fridge, that this will never be about the money for you.

You want to tell her that you're grown up now. An adult, an _old lady_. And what you want is to insure that every day of the rest of your life (hopefully a few more quarter centuries) will be spent with her. You've built your life around her and you want the world to know that she is your rock, your foundation, your mountain. And you are hers. You will bear her, you will shelter her, you will withstand the ages for her.

You want to ask her if she will be yours, to have and to hold, in richer and in poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live? You want to quote a Neruda sonnet. But you open your mouth to speak and your lips are covered by her lips. And your body is engulfed in her embrace. And she is repeating _yes yes yes a million yesses_ in your ear.

_I'm yours, Santana Lopez, proudly so._

And she's kissing you and you don't think you've ever been so happy.

You're getting married.


End file.
